OCR Text |
Show 56 METHOD OF DISCOVERY. leave this room with a very clear conviction that scientific investigation is not, as many people seem to suppose, some kind of modern black art. I say that y~u might easily gather this impressi~n f~om_ the _manner 1n which many persons speak of scwnbfic 1nqu1ry, or talk about inductive and deductive philosophy, or the principles of the a Baconian philosophy." I do protest that, of the vast number of cants in this world, there are none, to my mind, so contemptible as the pseudoscientific cant which is talked about the "Baconian philosophy:'' . To hear people talk about the great Chancellor,- and a very great man he certainly was,-you would think that it was he who had invented science, and that there was no such thing as sound reasoning before the time of Queen Elizabeth! Of course, you say, that cannot possibly be true ; you perceive, on a moment's reflection, that such an idea is absurdly wrong; and yet, so firmly rooted is this sort of impression,-! cannot call it an idea, or conception,- the thing is too absurd to be entertained,but so completely does it exist at the bottom of most men' :; minds, that this has been a matter of observation with me for many years past. There are many n1en who, though knowing absolutely nothing of the subject with which they may be dealing, wish, nevertheless, to damage the author of some view with which they think fit to disagree. What they do, then, is not to go and learn something about the subject, which one would naturally think the best way of fairly dealing with it; but they abuse the originator of the view they question, METHOD OF DISCOVERY. 57 in a general manner, and wind up by saying that, u After all, you know, the principles and method of this author are totally opposed to the canons of the Baconian philosophy.'' Then everybody applauds, as a matter of course, and agrees ,that it must be so. But if you were to stop them all in the middle of their applause, you would probably find that neither ~he speaker nor his applauders could tell you how or 1n what way it was so; neither the one nor the other having the slightest idea of what they mean when they speak of the (( Baconian philosophy.'' You will understand, I hope, that I have not the slightest desire to join in the outcry against either the morals, the i~tellect, or the great genius of Lord Chancellor Bacon. He was undoubtedly a very great man, let people say what they will of him; but notwithsta~ ding all that he did for philosophy, it would be entirely wrong to suppose that the methods of ~odern scientific inquiry originated with him, or with h1s age; they originated with the first man, whoever he was; and indeed existed long before him, for many of the essential processes of reasoning are exerted by the higher order of brutes as completely and effectively as by ourselves. We see in many of the brute creation the e~ercise of one, at least, of the same powers of reasoning as that which we oursel ·cs employ. ~Phe method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expre~sion of the necessary mode of working of the human nnnd. It is simply the mode at which all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise and exact. There is no more difference, but there is just the same |